


Mother Mary

by animus_wyrmis, callowyn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Unconventional Formatting, chatfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-28
Updated: 2011-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animus_wyrmis/pseuds/animus_wyrmis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/callowyn/pseuds/callowyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary Campbell Winchester could think of nothing worse than raising her sons as hunters. But she wasn't exactly given a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mother Mary

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if this could be categorized as fic, exactly, but I'd like to drag it from obscurity while simultaneously proving that starting conversations with me is a dangerous, dangerous thing. This comment thread was originally on Wyrm's fic [Fate, Tall, Delayed](http://animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com/57919.html?thread=897599#t897599), where we pondered what Supernatural would be like if John had died and Mary raised the boys. I've edited it for cohesion but preserved the large swathes of capslock so you understand the depths of our emotion.

**The Hunting Life**

What would Mary do about Sam? She did the "save the person you love, take the bargain" thing once, would she know better a second time? Would that change her mind the next time or would it set a precedent? What if she is like Dean, sacrificing more and more of herself to keep her family safe, until she can't even remember how to refuse? Until there is nothing left of her but her sons, and still she saves, take this, take this, just leave them be. The mother who says, You are my children, you will do as I say, you will let me take the fall for ALL OF THE APOCALYPSE. They take and they take and they never understand what she has given them, because she refuses to think it is less than their due. MARY, GOING TO HELL FOR HER SONS.

Keeping her children in the dark! Letting the hunts pass her by, ignoring the calls, pretending to be normal. Shielding her new family from the sins of the old. She ought to know better. When angels come for her children she gives Dean money for takeout, the number of the neighbors next door, the frozen casseroles in the freezer, and she takes out guns she hasn't touched in years and contacts she's ignored all this time, and she goes out to take care of things, because her sons are not going to be weapons in this war.

Castiel telling Mary "your sons are chosen" and Mary telling him he'd best choose again. Zachariah's gradually crueler forms of persuasion. Michael talking to her with John's face, telling her to give in. "No," she says to Zachariah, "No," to Castiel, "No," to John and Lucifer and her mother and her father and her best friend from childhood. She's killed demons in familiar bodies and she'll kill angels just the same, just you wait and see.

YOU GET THE HELL OUT BEFORE I KILL YOU, and Sam and Dean staring at her, at the stranger she's threatening. This is not the PTA mom they know. People start asking questions, start saying she's snapped, so she takes her boys and she drives. Dean in the front seat with the maps, Sam in the back with a cooler of sandwiches, both eying each other at rest stops. "What's going on?" Sam whispers, and Dean shrugs, like, "Man, I don't know," and Mary kisses them both fiercely.

"Mom, I'm hungry, I wanna go home," says Sam, but Mary just shushes him, looking out the motel window, one hand on Sammy's head and the other holding her pistol. "This is home now," she tells them, and lets Dean put him to bed. "What are you doing, Mom?" Dean asks. "You can tell me," but Mary just shakes her head. He's not going to have to learn what she learned. She hated the way Dean's eyes lit up when he first saw her gun collection, but she hates even more the voice of the Campbells in the back of her mind, telling her she's already left their training too late. Mary doing her damnedest to shield Sam and Dean from the life she had, but pieces keep slipping through the cracks.

"How do you know how to do all this anyway?" Sam asks, and she doesn't know how to answer. Dean won't stop asking her to teach him everything, and when she finally gets fed up and asks him why, he looks at her like she's stupid and says, "So nothing gets Sammy."

"It's not your job to make sure nothing gets Sammy," Mary says, heartbroken and proud all at once, and ruffles his hair. ("Mo-om," Dean protests, and still she catches him with the salt, the knives.)

I wonder if John ever had that moment, looking at Dean and realizing just how far Dean took the pejorative to "watch out for Sammy." I wonder if Dean would be any more inclined to trust his mother with Sam than his father. Maybe more inclined to believe she'd do anything for Sammy but simultaneously less sure she would be able to? If Mom can really do anything, he wonders, what happened to Dad?

Does he ask that once? And Mary just sighs and says, "I made the wrong choice once, Dean. I couldn't do that twice." And Dean thinks, what does that even mean? Dean doesn't ask what happens if she makes another mistake. By now, he knows.

"Here, Sammy, I want you to learn how to load this."

"Mom's going to freak if she knows we're touching her guns!" Sam complains, but Dean just shakes his head. There are worse things.

Dean has been watching Mary strip guns for years now, but that's still different than feeling the weight of one in his hand, turning it to see all the parts fitting together. The first time he tries to shoot a sawed-off he's knocked flat on his ass, but he keeps trying; Dean can be patient with things worth waiting for. He takes Sam out to another abandoned field and braces to catch him on the kickback.

"Why do we have to learn this anyway?" Sam asks. Dean looks at him sharply, about to say, Don't whine, but Sammy's frowning and biting at his lip.

"I don't know," Dean says finally. "I think things are--are more dangerous. For us. After what happened."

Sam brooding in the backseat, not even rising to Dean's bait, until one day he goes to their mother and says, "I want to help." And Mary watches as her younger son goes from a whining child to this small person inspecting her Taurus with a crease in his forehead and his mouth pressed tight shut. Sam hugging his knees on the motel bed long past the time he should be asleep.

"Sam, honey," Mary says, and Sam just whispers, "I'm watching." Watching for what, she thinks, but doesn't ask.

Suddenly Sam starts rifling through her books, starts asking questions. What made the difference between werewolves and skinwalkers? Why do demons respond to Latin but no other languages? If you learned this from Grandpa, who did HE learn it from? How many monsters are out there really? Mommy, why do I sometimes dream the future?

Mary answers as honestly as she can, tries not to lie. She hates lying to her children. But dammit, she left that life so they would never have to know this, and so Mary finds herself saying, "Don't worry, Sammy, it's just a dream."

Oh god what if one of her assorted cousins came from another round of special children and she knows the signs, remembers the yellow-eyed demon in her father making deals. Sometimes she watches Sammy twitching in his sleep and thinks it might be kinder to just—but what kind of mother thinks that? She backs away from her sons on shaky legs and double-checks the salt lines.

She tries not to say anything, but Dean catches her watching Sammy too carefully. "What is it, Mom?" he asks. "What's going on? What are you worried about?" And Mary saying, too forcefully, "There is _nothing_ wrong with your brother."

Dean doesn't need to be told there's nothing wrong with Sam; he knows his brother. Dean notices the way she stares at Sam sometimes and he starts to think, that's not Mom, can't be, Mom loves Sammy. He sees her fingers tapping against her gun sometimes and whispers Christo, Sam squirming in his arms. Dean watching his mother more and more closely, sleeping with a knife under his pillow. He knows his mom would never hurt Sammy. He knows. Still he finds himself waking up in the middle of the night, checking to make sure Sammy's still breathing. Dean can't articulate his thoughts, or refuses to; he's not choosing anyone because they're all on the same side, they're all a family, right? But still when Sam burrows against him in the musty motel bed, Dean angles himself between Sam and their mother. He'll take care of him no matter what.

Den comes in on her one day, sobbing, sobbing as hard as she did the day their dad died. "Mom?" he whispers, and she shakes her head. Dean's barely thirteen, she thinks, not old enough to know about this. She promised she wouldn't be like her own parents. "Mom?" he says again, and she thinks, If I don't tell him, is he going to get hurt? Is ignorance really bliss, what if something gets her like it got John, like the thing that's going after Sammy? What if her reluctance makes them too vulnerable, what if they let down their guard because they don't know what to guard against and she isn't fast enough to do it for them? And she asks herself, endlessly, what am I doing?

It's bad enough that Sammy's been in three fifth grades and it's only February. Her parents could do this from home, she remembers vaguely, but whenever she goes to the classifieds for a house she finds herself in the obituaries instead, halfway down the highway before her original purpose resurfaces. Maybe the next town, she thinks, the next hunt. Lawrence feels like a happy dream she once had. She's been running for so long, and there is always something behind her.

"Mommy, can we have a house someday?" Sam asks from the backseat as he tells her to take Exit 34b. Mary pretends not to hear the game Sam and Dean invent, watching the neat suburban houses out the window and choosing the one they would most like to live in. She doesn't have the heart to tell him he'll be lucky if he ever gets to stop running. She and Dean might be able to hunker down and hide, but Sammy shines like a beacon to Hell. They run for Sam and she can only pray they will never run from him.

Sometimes she even misses the housework, which she always used to complain about and John never did anything about. But now she finds herself wishing for a vacuum or her own washing machine. She remembers when John bought their first dryer, beaming with pride, and swallows hard. There was a time in her life, surely, when she had friends who couldn't drop a wendigo at fifty paces, when she had conversations that were neither about hex bags nor about who gets which side of the musty motel bed. Sometimes when she is tucking Dean to sleep he will ask, drowsily, for her to tell him a Lawrence story. That's all they are to him now. Sometimes she catches Sammy listening, his body too still and rigid to be asleep, but he never asks for a story himself. Dean mentions having play dates with the neighborhood kids and Sam's nose scrunches up in confusion. She tries to tell Sammy stories, it's just that they're all so caught up with the demon, with the fire. With the life they lead now. She wishes she knew how to tell him that their happy life in Lawrence had belonged to him too.

Lawrence stories: One time, Dad took you to a baseball game all by yourself and you almost caught a foul ball. Once you and Sammy and I went out for ice cream and Miss Saundra behind the counter let you scoop your own. One time you took swim lessons and jumped off the diving board.

Lawrence stories: You had a stuffed turtle when you were a baby, you loved that thing so much that no amount of washing could get the dirt off and you'd chewed one of its legs half off. When you saw Sammy in his crib for the first time, and he wouldn't stop crying no matter what any of us did, you ran off and got that turtle and bounced it on Sammy's stomach until both of you were giggling and you'd tipped yourself halfway into the crib with him. When you'd calmed down a little you looked up at me and said in your serious four-year-old voice, "Good job, Mommy."

"You always wanted to be a big brother," she tells Dean while he drifts off. "But you wanted a little sister."

"Ew, girls!" Dean mumbles, and Mary smiles.

"You said it was okay if we kept Sammy, though," she continues. "Since we'd gone to all the trouble to bring him home."

Mary was an only child! SHE DOESN'T UNDERSTAAAAAAAAAND. She thinks maybe her parents made good choices there. Maybe she should have, for instance, run off with another woman and lived on a communist commune. They could have had a horse. Free love, no angels. She shies away from the thought that she should have stopped at Dean.

She's so careful with birth control now. She knows she can't be pregnant and on the run, but she also can't handle a third child. What if the demon gets it, too? I couldn't raise a child not knowing his father, she tells herself fiercely, and I couldn't marry a civilian again. Sometimes her period is late and she spends long minutes in the bathroom, panicking, trying not to argue with herself about options, not admitting that she knows her next boy would be named "John."

Oh my god, though, who does this make the Adam? WHERE ARE THE DISTANT WINCHESTER COUSINS, THE ONES WHO NEVER EVEN STOOD A CHANCE? MAYBE THERE IS NO ADAM IN THIS VERSE. Heaven has no backup vessel. Does Mary have family who got out and had happy Adam lives with baseball games? Apparently not. No hunter who emerged unscathed, no one left so stupid as to say yes.

But the bloodline was on the Winchester side, wasn't it? WHAT IF RESURRECTED JOHN!MICHAEL OH FFFFFFFFFF. AND MARY RESOLUTE, TRYING TO BE RESOLUTE, BUT GOD IT'S HER HUSBAND. JOHN ALMOST AS HE WAS FRESH FROM THE WAR, LUCIFER MAKING SAM NEARLY UNRECOGNIZABLE, AND NEITHER SHE NOR DEAN CAN DECIDE WHICH OF THEM TO RUN TO. MARY CAUGHT BETWEEN WANTING TO SAY, GET THE HELL OUT, THE DEAD DON'T RISE, AND WANTING TO TACKLE HIM, AND WISHING SHE LOOKED FIFTEEN YEARS YOUNGER, AND MOST OF ALL WISHING HER FAMILY COULD JUST BE LEFT ALONE. THE SPLIT SECOND BEFORE SHE REALIZES WHAT'S WRONG ABOUT HIM, THINKING OH, YOU FOUND ME AGAIN, I ALWAYS KNEW YOU WOULD. Thinking, I knew you wouldn't let death stop us again. Thinking, I would have followed you if not for them. But now he's the one he has to protect their sons from. And then thinking, I fucked up once and I won't do it again. It's that as much as anything that makes her throw the blade at him.

Sammy's face when he sees her grappling with a man he doesn't know, Dean's face when he recognizes John. And the three of them in the car, headed away, Mary sobbing so hard she thinks she'll never be able to stop. Sam asking a million questions, Sam wanting to know who that was and why she's crying, and Dean clams up so tight she's afraid he'll never speak again.

"That was not your father," she says finally. "That was not your daddy," but that's the worst part, isn't it? That it was? Worse still because angels require consent, because whatever happened between John's resurrection and Michael taking him on was enough to make him say yes, and much as she hates to imagine John being tortured it's worse to think that he agreed right away. She should have taught him, she should have warned him, she should have kept him from dying in the first place. Mary should have known she couldn't be normal. She couldn't have that life, she couldn't have that husband, she put everyone in danger by trying and now they are all paying for it. Mary berating herself for buying into the American Dream just like her daddy always warned her about. She should've remembered what this life cost her family before trying to start one of her own.

**Renegade**

Do you think Henrickson's case is different? Assuming she's on the run from someone. Maybe assuming that she's on the run from whoever is doing the killings. Mary hates the pitying looks from motel staff who haven't divorced yet, seeing a woman on the run with two children, and she can just hear the horrible things they're assuming about John. Sam telling people he doesn't have a Dad, when Mary is behind him thinking you did, you did, he's gone but you had him.

Henrickson sighs and readies himself to trot out the "panicked mother" routine, and then Mary is leaving him handcuffed to a table with an apologetic pat on the knee, tucking her gun back into her jeans and calling for her sons. Victor spends a long time staring at the puddle that used to be human, absently picking the lock but also thinking about all the things those crazy witnesses used to say about Mary Winchester. "I know what you're running from," he'd said when he first brought her in, sympathetic and apologetic, looking at a woman on the run from a psycho boyfriend who kept after her. And Mary Winchester had looked at him appraisingly and said, "I doubt it." And now he thinks, shit.

I was about to wonder what her equivalent of "Great Escape" references would be, but then I remembered, she doesn't have a partner. She could have a whole team if she wanted and her parents to bail her out besides, but she burned those bridges, she won't ask them for help when there are so many strings attached. She'll break out soon enough. Mary works alone, because she wants to. Because she has to. Because you make those choices and you set your priorities and then you never, ever look back. Which makes it all the hard to stay away from her family, the ones she calls "Campbells" so she doesn't think about the Thanksgivings and Christmases and post-hunt celebrations or the way her parents never knew their grandchildren.

**Meet the Campbells**

Do you think Mary runs into Gwen when the boys are grown? And then doesn't know what to say, whether to admit who she is. She's stayed hidden this long, she thinks, and Gwen smiles the polite way of real hunters meeting amateurs. Mary grits her teeth when Gwen mistakes one of the ingredients in their hex bags and they have to start over. Gwen makes subtle jabs at anyone dumb enough to do this job with two snot-nosed kids as their backup—at least until Dean shoots the poltergeist that's about to throw her through a window.

She hears Gwen telling them about the life--her life--and shuts her eyes. Dean's eyes go wide when Gwen tells them how long she's been shooting guns, and Sammy says, "I wish we had cousins." No you don't, Mary thinks, and she can't helping wanting to call Gwen's father and demand to know why Gwen doesn't have any backup. She's only a few years older than Dean.

They meet other hunters and all of them feel vaguely familiar, off-limits and too close at once, the way family is. Sometimes Dean peers at them as though he, too, is trying to remember if he's seen these faces before. "How come we don't have any cousins?" Sammy demands. "How come you never talk about when you were a kid?"

"We never see Grandma and Grandpa anymore," Dean complains, but Mary knows what her parents would see in two not-so-young boys. Gwen tells her about the relatives dropping like flies and Mary can't match names to faces anymore, only knows that each step is bringing the demon closer to her Sammy. She'll do whatever it takes to keep her sons out of the line of fire.

Late at night she imagines picking up the phone and calling her cousins. Imagines a hunt where she can't pretend to be a nobody from Lawrence, a housewife turned hunter. Imagines saying, "Dean, Sammy, this is your family." She misses the feeling of an entire family having her back, the surety that if she doesn't get the shot someone else will. Then she runs across the group picture from an old family reunion and counts those among them left alive. The old families are dying around her, and they're safer apart. She repeats this to herself like a mantra. THE PUREBLOOD HUNTERS ARE DYING OUT. IT'S ALL MUGGLE-BORNS AND SQUIBS NOW. Mary's own stint as a Squib did not take. She should have known better.

Dean looks like her Uncle Daniel, something she never realized until she sees his picture in the paper, Dean's smile, his hair, and she carefully folds the paper over so her sons won't see, won't ask. Dean looks like John and her and the miscellaneous pieces of a dozen Campbells, but she can't think of a single family member who looks like Sammy. She refuses to think about the demon in his nursery and the concept of changelings. On Sammy's second hunt he gets knocked into a gravestone and concussed. When the doctors come back with brain scans and blood tests to tell her everything seems normal, she almost cries with relief.

She hopes Sammy doesn't know. She is extra careful to support him, to help him with his homework, to make sure he gets his hair cut. But Dean knows, she thinks. She sees it in the way his eyes narrow at her, in the way he is too protective of his brother. AND THEN DEAN WONDERS WHAT HE DID WRONG, WHY HIS MOM SEEMS SO MUCH MORE CONCERNED ABOUT SAMMY. He rationalizes quickly, of course: Sammy is special, Sammy's more important, Sammy needs protecting. From everyone.

She fucked up with her kids, she thinks. There's just not enough of her to be a mom and a hunter, to protect them from monsters and to protect them from this life and to protect Sammy from himself. She finds herself yelling at them even when she knows it'll make things worse, slapping them when they're in shock and she doesn't have time to coddle them out of it. She tells Sammy that they're just dreams and she doesn't want to hear about them, hoping they'll stop if he's not allowed to think about it. She understands her parents in ways she never wanted to. She hears her mother's voice echoing her own and hates herself for it.

Sammy stops telling her about the dreams but she thinks he still dreams them; Dean's face goes shuttered when he looks at her. He calls her ma'am instead of mom. "Dean," she says, but then she can't think how to continue. "Get those into the car," she says instead. Sometimes she catches Sam and Dean's hushed conferences about the dreams he's not supposed to be having anymore, the way Dean insists they whisper, tries to comfort his brother with assurances it's not real, though he never brings himself to shut Sammy down like Mary does. Dean is, she thinks, a better mother than she is.

**Mary/Cas**

MARY FACING DOWN THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN WITH A SWORD IN HER HAND AND A COCKY SMILE. "IF YOU WANT THEM, COME AND CLAIM THEM." AND HOLDING THE ANGEL-KILLING SWORD FEELS STRANGELY FAMILIAR, THOUGH SHE CAN'T REMEMBER WHY. ANGELS ARE WATCHING OVER YOU, SHE TOLD THEM, BUT IT WASN'T A PLATITUDE, IT WAS A WARNING.

MARY LEARNING ENOCHIAN. MARY BLACKMAILING CAS INTO SIGILING THEIR RIBS. PERHAPS MARY/CAS TIMES OMG OMG. BECAUSE UNLIKE THE OTHER ANGELS, CAS TAKES THE TIME TO WATCH THEM AND FIGURE OUT WHY MARY IS DOING THIS. Reluctantly impressed by her tenacity, her ability not only to fight but to wage war. The doubts creeping in: this human woman reminds him of his sister before she fell.

He finally meets her, a whir of wings, her defensive stance. "I'll make your boys invisible to the garrison," he promises, and her look doesn't soften but she says, "Let's talk." Cas isn't sure what to do with this impediment that refuses to be blasted aside, just as Mary isn't sure what to do with someone who is so dangerous to her sons but reminds her so much of John.

They have to play twenty questions to get to know each other, both of them too crafty not to lie. In the end do they know each other any better? Later Mary sifts through his answers, matches them with what she's heard of the other angels. The lies he told reveal almost as much as the truth. "What are we doing?" he asks her once, and she says, "I don't know," and is it a confession or a concession?

SHE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT SHE'S DOING. NO ONE DOES. But that, as she explains to Castiel, is what free will means.

This answer does not help Castiel! Mary gets him a philosophy primer. It has chapters on quantum. CAS ENVESSELS A PROBABILITY WAVE JUST TO UNDERSTAND. Never has his life been so untethered. By the time he makes it back it seems amazing that Mary stays true and solid in front of his eyes. CAS ALSO POPS INTO A PHYSICS LECTURE AND ASKS QUESTIONS. He kind of enjoys the problem sets too. Mary frowns at him when he tries to explain. In his mind Cas gives elementary particles their proper names: "Uriel" for neutrino, "Balthazar" for electron, "Michael" for gluon, "Gabriel" for graviton. Mary asks scathingly if that tree over there is named Leonardo. "No," Cas answers gravely, "that is Beruchiel."

Castiel argues with physics grad students in coffee shops and comes away with new music ideas. Mary buys him a CD player. LOLOLOL THIS MARKS THE EMERGENCE OF HIPSTER CAS. Only this is the seventies, so I guess he's...a hippie? CAS GOING BACK IN TIME JUST FOR WOODSTOCK. "Where have you been," Mary says suspiciously, and Cas grabs her around the waist and twirls her. "Have you been smoking?" she asks next.

CAS/MARY SLOWDANCING, I NEED IT. And she is like "I don't think I can fit on the head of a pin" and he is like "It's okay, neither would the Chrysler Building." The first time they have sex, Mary looks anxious, says, "I've not--since John--" and they take it super slow. (Mostly also because Castiel has NO IDEA what he's doing.) Mary coaching Castiel, "like this," coaxing out those brief flashes where his body's instincts take over, trying to ask what he wants when Cas has even less idea than she does. Doing her best not to compare this to anyone else.

Castiel not being sure, asking, "Humans really do this? For pleasure?" and remembering stories of angels who had children with humans, back before Noah. Those angels had fallen, he thinks. Cas knows the theory, of course, he has studied human sin, but the practical applications take him by surprise. He remembers his bafflement, his scorn, and doesn't know whether to be ashamed or to wish he could turn it now on himself.

I BET HE TRIES TO RESEARCH IT IN THE LIBRARY. AND WHEN MARY CATCHES HIM WITH THE PIZZA MAN VIDEO SHE LAUNCHES INTO A LONG TIRADE OF HOW PORN OPPRESSES WOMEN AND THE HARMFUL PORTRAYALS OF FEMALE SEXUALITY HAVE SET BACK THE MOVEMENT THIRTY YEARS AND SHE MAKES HIM READ BOOKS AND RAGES ABOUT THE DAYS BEFORE ROE V WADE AND AND AND and Cas just watches her sweeping around the room in a fury, confused and inexplicably fond, reminded of certain avenging angels he has known.

SHE SITS HIM DOWN WITH A BOOK OF FEMINIST CRITIQUE AND REFUSES TO DISCUSS ANYTHING FURTHER UNTIL HE CAN ADEQUATELY DEFINE "PATRIARCHY." Because at first, you know, Cas would just tilt his head at her and say that of course he knows they live in a patriarchy, is God not the Father? Mary narrows her eyes at the ceiling. "He's next on my list." That Mary Winchester shares a name with the Holy Mother does not escape his notice.

SHE MAKES HIM WATCH THAT SPECIAL ON PBS ABOUT HOW GOD HAD A WIFE. CAS READS THE DA VINCI CODE AND NIPS BACK TO BIBLICAL TIMES TO SEE WHAT THE REAL DEAL WITH THAT MAGDELENE CHICK WAS. HE IS SHOCKED TO DISCOVER THAT DAN BROWN HAS NOT DONE HIS RESEARCH AT ALL. ALSO, ANGELS AND DEMONS WAS PRACTICALLY FALSE ADVERTISING. THIS MAN IS NOT A PROPHET, CAS THINKS. HOW CAN HE POSSIBLY HAVE SO MANY DISCIPLES? WHY ARE THE WINCHESTER GOSPELS NOT BESTSELLERS LIKE THIS? CAS IS OFFENDED ON THE WINCHESTERS' BEHALF. THE EPIC LOVE STORY OF SAM AND DEAN IS FAR MORE IMPORTANT THAN THIS DRIVEL. He resolves to have words with the NYT bestseller list. THEN HE FINDS OUT HARRY POTTER HAS SOLD LIKE EIGHTY TRILLION COPIES.

**Cas vs. J.K. Rowling**

WHO IS THIS LORD VOLDEMORT, CAS WONDERS, AND WHAT IS THIS PROCEDURE TO SPLIT SOULS? He contemplates variations on his war machine, wonders if splitting a soul is like splitting an atom. DEAR HUMAN AUTHOR, HOW EXACTLY DO YOU SPLIT SOULS? YOUR BOOKS WERE NOT VERY CLEAR. SINCERELY, CASTIEL, ANGEL, FALLING.

EXCUSE ME, JOANNA KATHLEEN, I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THESE HORCRUXES YOU SAY. COULD YOU PLEASE DIRECT ME TO THE SNAKE CALLED NAGINI THAT I MIGHT INTERVIEW HER IN PERSON? MS ROWLING PLEASE RESPOND TO MY LETTERS. I HAVE SENT YOU SEVERAL ALREADY. I AM SENDING THIS ONE BY OWL IN CASE THAT IS EASIER FOR YOU.

MS. ROWLING I AM NOT SURE IF YOU RECEIVED MY PREVIOUS OWL SO I AM ENVESSELING THIS ONE TO ENSURE IT REACHES ITS DESTINATION. THIS BODY IS PARTIAL TO MICE AND CHEEZ-ITS.

PS MS. ROWLING, I NOTICED YOU DID NOT EXPLAIN IN YOUR BOOKS WHAT HAPPENED TO LUNA LOVEGOOD IN THE END. WAS SHE AN ANGEL? I UNDERSTAND HER. MS. ROWLING WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SET ME UP ON A BLIND DATE WITH LUNA? I DO NOT MEAN THAT LITERALLY, MS. ROWLING, I WOULD NOT WISH TO DEPRIVE MS. LOVEGOOD OF HER ABILITY TO SEE. MS. ROWLING WOULD YOU EXPLAIN MORE CLEARLY WHAT NARGLES ARE? I AM WORRIED I HAVE FOUND SOME.

MRS. ROWLING YOU MENTION A CAR THAT CAN FLY BUT INACCURATELY CLAIM IT IS A FORD ANGLIA WHEN IN ACTUALITY THE ONLY FLYING CAR IN EXISTENCE IS A CHEVROLET IMPALA, AND THAT IS ONLY WHEN TRANSPORTED BY AN ANGEL AKA ME. FURTHERMORE MS. ROWLING WHERE ARE THE ANGELS IN YOUR STORIES? I DID NOT SEE ANY AND I LOOKED VERY HARD. MRS. ROWLING I OBJECT TO YOUR REPRESENTATION OF HEAVEN AS THERE ARE NO CREEPY BABIES LYING AROUND HERE IN REALITY. THOSE GO IN THE WAR MACHINE. FURTHERMORE HOW WOULD ONE GO ABOUT PUTTING GHOSTS INTO THE WAR MACHINE? I COULD USE THEIR SOULS.

DEAR MS. ROWLING WOULD PUTTING ONE OR TWO SOULS BACK INTO PURGATORY COUNT AS MAKING HORCRUXES? I AM VERY KEEN NOT TO BE EXPLODED AGAIN. DEAR JKR, ALSO, ARE YOU SURE THAT MAKING HORCRUXES IS A BAD IDEA?

**Team Mascots**

TEAM FREE WILL: A PISSED-OFF MOTHER OF TWO AND MR. COMATOSE OVER THERE. SAM AND DEAN ARE MASCOTS.  
THEY CAN KEEP THE SCOREBOARD. APOCALYPSE: 0. TEAM FREE WILL: 12  
THEY ARE THE CHEERLEADERS. SAM IS ALL "MY SKIRT ITCHES" AND "THIS IS STUPID" AND "MY POM-POMS KEEP HITTING ME IN THE FACE," BUT DEAN IS TOTALLY INTO IT. GO TEEEEEEAM.  
DEAN THINKS IT'S THE BEST THING EVER. HE HAS TO BE ON TOP OF THE PYRAMID THOUGH.  
DEAN IS KING OF THE HILL, TOP OF THE HEAP!  
GIMME A T! GIMME AN E! GIMME AN A! GIMME AN M!  
I SAID BRRR  
CAUSE IT'S COLD IN HERE  
THERE MUST BE SOME HUNTERS IN THE ATMOSPHERE  
"DEAN I AM NOT DOING A SPLIT!"  
"COME ON, SAMMY, IT'S FOR MOM!"  
"MOOOOOM DEAN DROPPED ME WHEN I DID A FLIP"  
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT! YOU'RE A BAD FLYER!"  
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT! MY TOP IS REALLY TIGHT AND IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE!"  
"MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T EAT SO MUCH LUCKY CHARMS YOUR UNIFORM WOULD FIT YOU RIGHT!"  
"MOOOOM! DEAN'S MAKING FUN OF ME!"  
"SAM STARTED IT"  
*slapfight*  
"I DON'T CARE WHO STARTED IT, I'LL FINISH IT."  
SO HELP HER SHE WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND.  
IF SHE HEARS ONE MORE WORD, ONE MORE, IT WILL BE EARLY TO BED FOR EVERYONE AND NO DESSERT FOR A WEEK!  
BUT MOM THAT'S JUST HOW MY VOLUPTUOUS LIPS GO.  
...ARE YOU WEARING MY LIPSTICK?  
"UHHHHHH IT WAS SAM'S IDEA!"  
OH GOD THE OEDIPAL CONNOTATIONS OF BORROWED PANTIES.  
SAM WOULD HAVE TO EXPLAIN WHAT OEDIPAL MEANS THOUGH.  
SHUT UP, GEEK BOY. YOU'RE THE ONE PRETENDING TO BE TALL IN THOSE HEELS. AS IF!  
MOOOOOOOM TELL DEAN I'M TALLER THAN HIM!  
MOOOOOOOOM SAMMY KEEPS ERASING THE LINES WHERE YOU MEASURED US.  
NO I DIDN'T STOP TATTLING!  
(I am in love with the idea that motel rooms across America have pencil marks on doorjambs from where Sam and Dean wanted to know the exact height difference between them, bickering about what it had been last time because their basis for comparison is four states over, Sam crowing as the gap gets smaller and smaller. Dean accusing Sam of standing on tip-toe.)  
"YOU'RE CHEATING, YOU'RE WEARING SHOES!"  
"YOUR BOOTS HAVE THICKER HEELS THAN MINE! YOU'RE THE CHEATER, CHEATER!"  
"I'M RUBBER AND YOU'RE GLUE AND EVERYTHING BOUNCES OFF OF ME AND STICKS TO YOU!"  
"YEAH? WELL--WELL TODAY IS OPPOSITE DAY!"  
Mary wishes she would hurry up and go deaf from gunfire.


End file.
